I know I'm a couple of weeks late on this, but after consecutive weekends out of town, going freelance, and basically turning my apartment into a home office/studio I'm just not catching up on everything!

I had never been to anything Formula Drift related, and to be honest...I don't really know shit about drifting. I've been to a couple of the local drift union shindigs here in St. Louis but none of those would prepare me for what I was getting into with Formula Drift. 

Thursday night me and a couple buddies backed up my little Ford Focus and headed to the Hotlanta! We left pretty late..somewhere around 10pm in hopes of driving all night and making to to Road Atlanta for what would be one of the most hectic/most fun events of my life. 

Roughly 9-10 hours later we arrived at our hotel and had just enough time to throw our things in a hotel room, meet up with my good buddy Darren, pack everything into his rental and head to the track. I had worked with Darren a few times covering events but I was still pretty nervous for covering this particular event. Thank God Darren had a pretty good plan set for coverage on this event because I shit you not there was hardly even 5 minutes to sit and think about what we had to do next. 

I don't really remember anything before getting to the grid. It was hot as shit, of course I was wearing all black, and I was stuck up there armed with a Pelican case filled with cameras. [notice I didn't say there was any water] 

My only direction on the grid was to basically mount cameras on a few select drivers, and make sure the angles were dope. The weekend before I had a little bit of practice at Hyperfest, but that wasn't nearly enough to prepare me for the hectic situation of running around a Formula Drift grid. I probably spent about 25-30 minutes just walking through the visual orgasm of incredible cars, roaring engines, smoke, and drivers before I had the courage to walk up to anyone and ask them if I could mount a camera on their car. 

I had met Ryan Tuerek, Vaughn Gittin JR, and Chris Forsberg the weekend before and was pretty comfortable with them so they were the first few dudes I approached. 

"h...hey, d-do you think I could uh...mount this g-go-pro in your car?"

was basically how the first round of asking drivers went. After the most encouraging "HELL YEAH!''s I've ever heard in my life, the rest was basically cake. Before I knew it I was slapping hands, grabbing water, and talking initiation and exit speed with drivers like we were best friends.  I don't really have words to describe how it felt being on the grid with all of these amazing humans. A motorsport nerd on the grid with a bunch of killer drivers would probably be the best way to describe it. 

   THE SMILE NEVER FADED FROM MY FACE.  

Through all of the heat, sweat, dizziness and dehydration the only thing that remained a constant thought in my head was "This shit is incredible."          

After a hectic day and a few brief heart attacks from losing location of cameras, The day had some to an end, and it was time to head back to the trailer to re-group with the homies, pack everything up, head back to the hotel, catch some Z's and do it all over again.

DAY 2 // COMPETITION DAY.

Day 2 was basically a piece of cake compared to Day 1 since we knew exactly what we had to do. We headed over to the track, got our ducks in a row and we were off! Hitting every mark on our check list like we had done this a thousand times. We only had a certain amount of time before heading up to the grid for practice before competition. Once on the grid there was no time wasted, and approaching drivers to mount was second nature. I was more excited to talk to drivers about their setups, problems, solutions, and qualifying times than mounting cameras (although that was still the main focus)  It was pretty awesome to see the transition drivers had made from qualifying day to competition day. There was a different kind of energy on the grid, a serious one. I could feel it as I walked by. Everyone was in the zone and I loved it. 

Watching donuts and seeing the smoke pour from their tires before each run was something I can't really explain. It was basically like I was seeing everything in slow motion with some epic ass music in the background. It was clear to me that these dudes were serious as shit about what they did, and the energy out there was amazing. My background is typically slow moving studio type work, but working out on something like this has lit an entire new spark in me. Not to mention the amount of incredible positive energy that each of these drivers radiate like crazy. Its very clear that these dudes absolutely LOVE what they are doing, and I think that in itself is absolutely incredible. 

After some intense practice runs, the sun went down, and I was unable to mount anymore during competition. So I took this time to photograph the drivers and their crews. I did my best not to bother anyone but I can't say I didn't creep around a certain few people grabbing as many frames of them as I could, haha

Once the competition was starting I went back down to the keyhole and grabbed my camera to shoot some still shots. The energy was still insane but this time it was the energy from the crowd that was engulfing me. Drift fans are definitely my favorite fans. These people get more hyped than any other fans I've ever seen in my life, and I absolutely loved it. 

I'm not much of an action photographer, but having a front row seat to the action was pretty freaking awesome if I do say so myself. I did my best to grab some decent frames but I was more hyped to just be out there with the stress of locating cameras off my shoulders. Keeping track of 5 cameras at a time is pretty damn stressful! 

All in all I can say with confidence that shooting FD ATL has been one of the most exciting things I've done in my career to date, and I can only hope to be able to get out to any of the other FD rounds this year. 

HUGE shoutout to Subject Media Group, Wrecked Magazine, Jeff and Erik Le, and Road Atlanta for making the weekend of of the most memorable to date. Definitely looking forward to attending more motorsport races and getting as much dope shit as I can!

CHEERZ TO LONG DRIVES, AWESOME PEOPLE, DOPE CARZ, SMOKE, AND FORMULA DRIFT

-TRAVIS

  

I guess you could say I've been a "Professional Photographer" for something like almost 2 years, since thats when I started doing it full time for a job. The strange part about that is that it took probably 7-8 months for me to actually start producing images that one might consider to be "Professional," and by using the term Professional I mean well thought out well crafted images. 

I moved out to St. Louis for this photographic job and it's been quite a journey both literally and figuratively. Leaving my hometown was something I absolutely did not ant to do, and the main reason for that is that when I was making the decision to move to another city and separate from my family there was 1 major obstacle holding me back, and that was the fact that my father was in his final journeys after battling cancer for the last five years. After I received the phone call with an extended job offer I hung up the phone immediately and went straight to my dad to ask him what I should do. He didn't even think twice before telling me to pack my shit and head to St. Louis. thats what any supportive parent would say, right? Naturally there was no way in hell I was going to leave with the thought lingering in my head that one day I would wake up and receive a phone call from my mother stating that the inevitable had happened. 

THATS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.

November 11, 2013 is a day that I will never forget as long as I live (at least until I go senile or blind since I have it written on my body, haha) Not only is it Veteran's Day, it was the day that my father would take his final breaths and be released into the unknown. Somewhere around 7:30 in the morning I received the phone call I had been dreading for the few months since I left home. When I looked at the phone on the way to work I knew exactly why my mother was calling me so early. "OH SHIT." Would be the last words I spoke before I was hit with the news. 

THE REASON IM TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS

is because ever since the day I lost my father things haven't been the same. My motivation levels have decreased drastically, my desire to interact with humans has decreased, my interests in a lot of things have decreased, etc. The main thing has been effected is my job, and my ability to work steadily. However what I have noticed is a ridiculously strong work ethic blossom. I know that may sound contradictory to the statements I just said above, but that way I see things is this: 

1. Losing a parent really sucks.
2. Idle minds think about shit.
3. I don't want to think about shit and be upset.
4. Keeping busy will keep my mind occupied
5. Keeping busy will increase skill and craft.
6. Keeping busy turns you into a hermit.
7. Hermits get a lot of shit done in small amounts of time.

So naturally, I did my best to stay busy as hell for the last year and a half, but in that time I've been so focused on working working working that I fell into this weird "robotic" mind set where I would just be a zombie basically and sometimes I would forget days or even weeks at a time. This pretty much happened up until a few days ago.

I had a pretty busy weekend coming up, and I was excited a shit for it! Import Face-off was going to be happening, people were coming in town, there was a cars and coffee, and a few other awesome things. I had been looking forward to this particular weekend for awhile now, and when the rain came in heavily and cancelled Import Face-off I was pretty bummed, but at the same time I wanted to do something in the rain that involved some cars and a camera. My buddy sent out a huge group text that threw some ideas around and before I knew it we were all meeting up and talking about a bunch of stuff before we finally went out and did something.

THIS IS THE PART THAT SAVED MY BRAND NEW PHOTOGRAPHIC CAREER

 After exchanging a shitload of different ideas back and fourth off of some awesome people, we eventually decided that we would go down to the road and try to do something a little different. I knew that I really wanted to get a rolling shot of a car in the pouring rain with enough standing water on the roads to create the misted effect. I also knew that I wanted to capture the rain and have it be apart of the image. I jumped in the back of my buddies wagon, tethered to another buddy in the front seat so he could check focus and exposure, and we were off. 

While we were shooting I was facing a number of obstacles. I was loosely sitting in the back of a car doing something like 40-50mph, my camera was wrapped in a plastic bag and I really couldn't see shit through the viewfinder, the spray from the car I was in was getting all over the lens, my particular camera has terrible autofocus, I was soaking wet, it was kind of cold, etc.

But none of that mattered. I was working with a team of awesome people doing something I had envisioned. When I wasn't busy wiping the front of my lens I was smiling from ear to ear, laughing, enjoying everything. It was absolutely perfect. 

THIS WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST MOMENTS OF MY LIFE. 

AND. Because of this experience, because of the awesome people who were working together to execute a vision of MINE, because I was able to actually bring something from my head into real life, I remembered why I wanted to become a photographer in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE being apart of a team and working together for a common goal. I think its fucking great. But this was the first time I had a bunch of other people who were excited and hyped to create a vision of MINE, and I couldn't be happier.  

What I've come to realize is that I've been following this very broad outline of how photographers are supposed to do things, and I've worked so hard to try and fit the mold and workflow. There have been a lot of successes for me personally in this chase, but I think when I was so wrapped up in molding myself into something that I consider to be actually worth something I lost the passion I have for doing the other non "work" photography related things to keep myself happy and excited. Thanks to this idea, that was brought back to life. 

Even though these images aren't the greatest things known to man, and there was no payment, or client, the payoff for these images has been gigantic in the sense that they have relit the spark in me to get out and create more of the shit I think about everyday.

Stay tuned people, I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more of these visions coming to life in the future.

CHEERZ TO AWESOME FRIENDS, MY DAD, AND BEING HAPPY AS SHIT.

-TRAVIS
 

Last week I had the pleasure of being accompanied by a pretty Ford Raptor in the studio. I had no idea how big those trucks were. I'm not saying the studio space is small...because its not...but this thing was basically peeking over my shoulder all week...it was weird. Oh, I guess I should mention that there was a Ram 3500 Dually and a smart car in here too...but that's besides the point. 

ANYWAY Once we were all done with the mumbo jumbo stuff we were finally able to take this pretty beast out to grab a few shots. I had never driven one of these before and I really was pretty impressed with the comfort and smoothness of the drive. Not to mention it being way higher than my little focus!

                     I COULD SEE EVERYTHING. AND IT WAS AWESOME. 

I didn't really have any idea what to do with this truck since I didn't really have a whole lot of time to think about it. The area we are in isn't exactly a very exciting one and I wasn't really trying to go do some heavy off roading in a truck that wasn't mine, haha!

The first spot we went to was something like an outdoor mall layout. As soon as we pulled in I thought it might be kind of cool to try and get a Lifestyle type of look outside a restaurant. We pulled up and stopped, then I hopped out and tried to get set up. For some reason that road was the place to be as soon as I started setting the camera up. When we first pulled in there was not a human or car in sight. Next thing I know its like rush hour traffic and cars are coming through like wildfire. I did my best to try and get at least 1 frame that was usable, then we bounced outta there faster than middle school students on the last day of school. 

The next spot we stopped at was one that I had shot at before. The red brick road and building are never a bad idea when going for a nice clean image. Since it was overcast everything was blending together and looking a little boring. I grabbed a strobe head with a gel on it and handed it to Steve. I wanted to add some kind of crazy sun flare and since the sun was hiding, I had to make my own! I love doing this kind of weird stuff in camera especially because every time I try to do sun flares and effects in post they always end up looking to fake. Im pretty hyped with the way the flare came out! Definitely a different look than anything I've ever shot before.

After a lot of excitement and quite a bit of waiting for traffic we headed to the next spot which was more of the offered type of location. This place is in the middle of nowhere and I definitely wish we could have done some more hoodrat things out there with this truck! We were getting sort of pressed for time so we jumped right to it and just messed around. I messed around a little more with the sun flare idea and also tried to do an off road rig shot. Due to lack of ND filters and super bouncy terrain, the rig shot didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I also discovered that I definitely need a longer pole if I'm going to be shooting big ass trucks like this! I'm not too hyped on this rig shot, but I'll throw it in here anyway! I did manage to pull out another rig shot at a bank a little later in the night. Again, not insanely hyped on these 2 but it was the first time using my rig, and the shorty poles really didn't help! haha.

A few hours later we set back out and tried to grab a few more frames. After getting shooed out of the spot I was the most hyped on shooting I was definitely not feeling shooting anymore. After a little convincing from Steve I setup 1 last location in a gravel construction site. I busted out the ice light and started painting left and right. I'm definitely happy that we stopped at this last spot on the way out because I really do like this type of image. I do wish that I was able to find more suitable locations to match this trucks purpose, but I guess that can be a goal for the next one!

You definitely can't win every time! and I'm more than okay with that!

CHEERZ to a baller truck I'll never be able to afford, and not getting too upset when things don't go as planned!

Travis

Saturday morning I crawled out of bed at the horrific time of 7:30am and threw myself in the car and headed to the first Cars and Coffee of the season. I hate mornings so much.

The turnout was great! Given that it was the first Cars and Coffee of the season I expected nothing less. I always love coming to these types of things because I don't really get the chance to see half of these cars any other time of the year, I love it.

There were several notable cars, and a lot of awesome people wandering the parking lot. But there were three cars that caught my eyes the hardest, and those were the classic Mini Coopers that were shipped over from the UK to the states by three pretty remarkable humans in hopes to raise money for a little boy back home dreaming of the day where he will be able to walk amongst his peers, his family, and his friends. I'm talking about a four year old boy by the name of Jack. 

THE AMERICAN JOB consists of three friends Pete, Alex, and Dudley making the voyage to North America in hopes to raise enough money to provide this little fella Jack a very specific surgery that only 1 doctor can perform. That doctor happens to be located right here in St. Louis Missouri so it was only perfect that I came across these epic humans right in my backyard. 

THESE GUYS ARE FUCKING AMAZING, AND I TRULY FEEL PRIVILEGED TO HAVE CROSSED THEIR PATH ON THIS INSANE ADVENTURE OF THEIRS.

I only had a short amount of time with each of these dudes and it was extremely hard for me not to break down crying when I caught word of what they were doing. I did my best to express to each of them how fucking amazing I thought it was that they were doing such a ballsy thing in order to help a young boy live a prosperous life. Even as I'm sitting here writing this I'm choked up because seeing instances like this restores my faith in humanity. As I was lingering around trying to gather as much information as I could it really hit me in the heart when each of the three stopped what they were doing and took the time to talk to me and allow me to steal their souls with my favorite combination of magnesium, glass, and science (aka my camera, lolz) Not to mention the fact that they were some of the most easy-going down to earth people I've ever met in my life.

I knew my time with them was limited as they were being flooded with all types of handshakes, thank you's, and other various curiosities from the general public. But the thing that still sticks with me the most is the fact that when we were conversing it was very clear to me that each of them was genuinely hearing what I was saying. their kind-hearted energy was radiating harder than the scent of cologne from Abercrombie & Fitch, and it was fucking amazing.

From what I understand, the trip was cut short due to some work conflicts but that hasn't stopped the trio from hitting as many states as they possibly can before they run out of money or one of their classic minis bites the american dust. I wish these three nothing but the best, and I hope I'm lucky enough to cross paths with these incredible souls again in my lifetime.

Do yourself a favor and check out The website for The American Job, and keep up with these guys on social media. If you've got anything to spare go ahead an contribute to their Just Giving Fundraiser as well. I know for sure that every penny is insanely appreciated.

www.theamericanjob.org/about/
www.justgiving.com/theamericanjob
www.facebook.com/groups/theamericanjob

CHEERZ to some fucking amazing humans, road trips, classic minis, and of course, Jack.

Best of luck to Pete, Alex, and Dudley on their voyage, and best of luck to Jack and his family. We're all rooting for you guys!

Travis

After hecticly moving into a new apartment and battling a popped air mattress I was sure that my life was in shambles. It wasn't until my buddy Darren sent me a text message that my whole day and weekend were turned completely around! 

Darren sent me a text message that read something along the lines of "Nice job on that F-stoppers thing man!" Thoroughly confused I simply replied "what????" then seconds later he sent my a picture of my picture on the front page of F-Stoppers as the photo of the day.

Beyond hyped I tried to navigate through poor Sprint cellular connection to get the front page pulled up so I cold see it for myself and about 13 minutes later there it was! woo!!!

Pretty hyped! Can't wait to get things moving now that the weather is nicer! 

cheeeeeeerz!!!!!!!

Travis

It's definitely been a bit of a crazy week! With all of the Fiesta-ing happening in the studio on top of a few other gigs I've been staring at a computer screen for roughly 4 days straight by now.....and they said being a photographer was all fun and games...

Now, before I go too in depth about the Fiesta we had in for testing and a shoot let me give you a little background on the owner of this lil guy. His name is Drew and he's an avid BMW M3 owner and road racing enthusiast. Being that I owned an M3 at one point me and Drew commonly find ourselves talking nerd stuff every now and then and during one of our regular nerd talks he mentioned that he had just totaled his daily driver (which was a 3 series) and was thinking about getting the new Fiesta ST.

                                                       ...................what?

There was probably a solid 6-7 second pause before I was able to say anything. "How in the shit do you drive an M3 built strictly for track and want a ford fiesta?!" is the first thing that came out of my mouth. There were probably a few more angry questions in there also, but when I finally calmed down Drew was telling me how he absolutely loved to hate on the Fiesta, but after reading a few good reviews and a little extended research he wanted to see if this little catfish looking football on wheels lived up to the hype. Drew went on to tell me that not only did the Fiesta ST live up to all of the internet hype, it exceeded it! 

With all of that being said, I still thought Drew had gone off the deep end with this whole Fiesta thing. Then....I saw it...I sat in it...and I got a feel of how it drove. Not only did Drew choose the perfect color (oxford white) and go the extra step and wrapping that beast in a clear bra, he also threw a roof rack on the top and....it's perfect. Never in my life did I ever see myself saying "oh yeah I really like that fiesta" or even "yeah i really like that ford" but man....Somebody over at Ford had the right idea by releasing the ST version of the Fiesta. Now, despite it looking like a football with a catfish face...this thing is pretty impressive. The ecoboost engine that with the right tune can exceed 40mpg and something like 250 ft/lb of torque, the Recaro seats, the aggressive transmission and clutch, the stiffened suspension, the touch screen display, the RGB LED cupholders, footwell, and dash accents...this car is pretty fuckin' cool! The only thing it lacks in my personal opinion is AWD, but with all of this hype about the Focus RS being the Ford AWD Subaru Killer...maybe they'll release a Fiesta RS also. You know...for those who like catfish faced footballs :) 

Anyways! due to a little remodeling the studio is a little crammed with a bunch of science right now, so I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate the mess and have a little extra fun with this shoot. Since the Fiesta is so small and nimble moving it around the studio was a breeze! And fitting it in-between some science was even easier! I tried to move a few things around to fill the frame a little (such as the garbage can spilled over) and wanted to create a different looking image. Its not very often you see a Fiesta in-between an automated reflow oven and a pick-and-place machine! Science! 

While we were in the middle of shooting this science fiesta, Trevor walked in with an HID handheld spotlight and needed the 12v power supply in Drew's car to test it out. I figured this would be a good time to add a little something else to this image. I told Trevor to hold the light over the door like he was pointing it at someone, we only had a few minutes to get this one shot before anyone noticed we weren't working so I quickly ran around to light everything, turned a couple lights on and off and to my luck it worked out! Doing these types of shoots are always fun to me especially, I just wish I had a little more time to do them! 

I'm curious to see what kind of power Drew plans on adding to this little guy. He hasn't really expressed any immediate interest in making serious power additions or anything like that....but we'll see how it goes!

CHEERZ TO FIESTA-ING WITH SCIENCE IN THE STUDIO!

Travis

Yup! You read that correctly! I made the ultimate mistake a deleted my whole site. Unfortunately this means quite some time going through my backup drives to recover work to showcase! 

Please be patient as I get things in order and back up and running, and be on the lookout for some new work as well!

CHEERZ TO HUGE MISTAKES AND BACKUP DRIVES!!!

woo!

Travis

It's been a few weeks since my last blog post but don't let that fool you, I've been busy as shit! haha.

Last week during the -20 degree frigid arctic freeze we decided it would be a good idea to go downtown and shoot the cover for the 2015 Diode Dynamics product catalog. We had been putting off shooting the cover for a few weeks and I was seriously regretting letting it go so long. I called up my buddy Jayson, we packed up the FR-S and Mustang full of gear and hit the road. 

I tried my best to put together a pre-production packet for this shoot, but knowing everyone involved there was almost no way we would be able to stick to a time schedule and shot list, hahah. We mainly used that just for the inspiration images.

Once we got downtown we didn't really have a firm idea of where we were shooting, so we spent around 15 minutes driving through alleys, parking lots, garages, etc until we decided on a location. We pulled up to the front of the building and started unloading immediately. One thing that I always thought was so strange was how dead downtown St. Louis is at almost any given time. I think it was somewhere around 12:30pm on a weekday when we got out there and it looked like a Sunday morning...well until we started shooting. THEN it became the place to be OF COURSE! We held up some traffic, waited sort of patiently and fought the cold to grab a few shots of the FRS and Mustang tandem in a rig shot. 

If you're not familiar with the popular automotive "rig shot" then I'll explain it for you. If you are, skip this section!

First, You hook 2 (sometimes 3) suction cups to usually the roof and windshield of the car (location of suction cups of course depends on the type of angle you are going for when building your shot). Once you have those secured in place you then take your pole and secure it to the suction cups usually with the help of a couple of super clamps. Once you get everything secured in place you then take a magic arm and attach it to the pole. this is where the camera sits. The reason for the pole is to keep the camera stable and focused while the car is moving in order to maintain a certain look. The cool thing about these rig shots is that the cars appear to be in fast motion, but they are actually moving pretty slow, somewhere around 3-5mph. Setting the camera on a long shutter allows for the information to be recorded slowly on the camera sensor and creates the motion effect.  The end result is pretty cool looking, and the rest is magic!

For this particular Rig Scene we wanted to have 2 cars in the shot. In order to accomplish this we had to setup the cars a certain distance away from each other, then maintain constant speed and distance while the shutter was open to maintain focus. This is exactly as hard as it sounds especially when you have 2 manual transmissions and some heavy footed drivers, haha!!

I think we did something like 3-4 runs in the first location before we all became frozen and desperately needed to get something to eat. Oh, and the rig fell off one of the cars due to freezing cold suction cups. Surprisingly we didn't get kicked out of either location the whole time we were down there. 

PROTIP: TRY NOT TO RIG ON FREEZING COLD DAYS OR THE SUCTION CUPS MIGHT GET TO COLD AND CAUSE THE RIG TO FALL OFF THE CAR. 

After we filled our stomachs and thawed out a little we hopped back in the cars and headed to the second location to finish up the last couple of shots. By this time we were so sick of the cold that we just hammered out the last two shots, and they ended up being the best! 

Once we were finally finished and halfway frozen, we tore everything down and made a mad dash back to the studio to unpack and get everything downloaded before I became even more cranky and cold than I already was! 

Huge Shoutout to Jayson Carey Photography for helping on this shoot! Go check out Jayson's stuff over at www.eyelevelstl.com 

Here's a few of the images we ended up getting out there while almost losing our hands and feet to hypothermia, enjoy!

CHEERZ,

Travis

I'm sure you've all heard a million times about the importance of keeping backups of all of your work. Whether it be photographic, design, paperwork, whatever. We've all had that one friend, teacher, parent, etc. who was a freak about keeping everything backed up.

When I was in college I myself had a professor who really stressed the importance of keeping a backup of your work drive, then a backup of your work drive, then an archive of everything, oh and keep them all in separate places just to be safe. When I first heard him saying all of these things my thoughts were this: 

1. "Where in the hell am I going to get the money to afford all of these backup drives?"
2. "This dude is nuts, a backup of your backups backup? this is out of hand."

I've even known photographers who buy new memory cards after every shoot just to be sure that there was NO CHANCE of a total loss. If worse came to worse, they could always rework all of the files and deliver the jobs. Crazy right? The answer is no. When you're getting paid high dollar to provide something for a client they don't want to hear that your drive failed, and that 5 days of shooting and all of that money spent was totally wasted. You can basically expect your phone to never ring again after something like that.

I never even really thought twice about keeping backups or archives until I moved out here to St. Louis and started doing actual jobs for actual money, and that required access sometimes a couple of months after the job was finished. So i grabbed myself a nice 1TB backup drive, and kept all of my jobs on there. Little did I know that when I actually started taking on jobs and keeping all of the files associated with said jobs, my 1TB drive became full before I knew it. 

So! What'd I do? Of course I hopped on amazon and grabbed another 1TB drive! The drive arrived very quickly and I began using it as a backup for my work drive. Everything was great right? 

SIKE.SIKE.SIKE.SIKE.SIKE.LOL.LOL.LOL.SUX2SUK.

About a month or maybe two into owning my backup drive, you guessed it. It failed. 

I know what you're thinking, "Oh man Travis your drive failed on you? That sucks man, but you had it all backed up right?"
Well the answer is a big fat No. I didn't. Because I wasn't expecting this brand new drive to fail on me while I had some pretty important things on it. THATS THE THING! You never expect things like that to happen, but especially with technology they always do.

My father used to tell me all the time and I will never forget this as long as I live: 
                "It's not a matter of if the technology will fail, its WHEN the technology fails."

Of all of the things I've heard my whole life, I really wish that would have been one of them that I would have listened to a little better, especially now since I was out a hard drive with some important work on it. 

Okay so! When the drive failed I called the manufacturer and explained my situation to see what my options were. After about 5-6 attempts at getting someone directly on the phone I finally cracked though the great wall of China and had a support tech. I jumped through the necessary hoops, filled out some paperwork, and sent my drive back to the peeps who made it. The support manager assured me that the people who built my device would perform a pretty extensive data recovery process and would retrieve my data and send it back to me on a brand new drive. All good right? ehhhh not quite.

About 2 weeks after I sent my drive off I still hadn't heard from anyone, So I decided I would make a few phone calls and see what was going on. I was informed that my unit had been sent back to Taiwan, and it could take up to 90 days before I heard anything back. A little frustrated   I said "okay" and requested a little more prompt updates next time. 

I shit you not, literally 2 days later I received and e-mail from the support manager telling me that my drive was not successful in data recovery and that it was processed for disposal. 

HOLD UP, WHAT?!!

I quickly replied to the support manager asking him if it was a possibility to simply send me back my drive so that I could try a few other methods for data recovery. He swiftly replied with "no." and explained that if I wanted my drive to be sent back to me I should have checked the box on the form that I sent in when I sent the drive back. Apparently my direct request via e-mail was not enough to get me my drive back. Oh, by this time they had already threw my drive away and sent me a new one. 

Now, I know that was a pretty long drawn out story all just to say simply "keep everything backed up." But I just thought that I'd share my personal experiences with you so that hopefully you will go out and purchase yourself a decent backup drive.

[PROTIP: Buy a drive on Amazon and get yourself a little 2-year data recovery plan from Seagate for 10$ I'll never buy another drive without something like this again.]

The moral of the story: backup your shit, and be thoughtful of the quality of the drive you purchase. Also, buy a data recovery plan when you buy a drive. you'll be thankful you did.
 

CHEERZ!!

Travis
 

This might be a little late, I've been kind of slacking on these blog entries....

Last Friday coolant have come soon enough. Once I heard word that NETSKY was touring the United states AND stopping in St. Louis I nearly shit myself. I've been pretty into Netsky for a couple of years now and constantly find myself listening to his music every single day. Needless to say I bought tickets as soon as I could. I was hyped as shit.

Although it was pretty cold and raining, nothing could ruin this night for me. Me, Darren, and Devin piled into Devin's Jetta and hit the road. Despite sliding all over the highway and some foggy windows we finally made it to the Old Rock House and I couldn't have been happier. 

We showed up pretty early, but people were stating to pack in. Im not sure if you guys have been to the Old Rock House, but that place is tiny. How one of the best producers in Drum and Bass booked a show here and sold tickets for 15$ is beyond me. I easily would have paid my right leg to see Netsky live, thankfully I only had to pay the 15$ hahaha. 

The opening guys played a pretty dope set and got the crowd hyped up before Kove came on and reallllly got the crowd going. I didn't really know what to expect from the openers, but they  definitely did a good job getting things going before netsky took stage around midnight.

Once the lights went down and netsky was about to come on stage, I ran upstairs to the balcony to get some shots. I was the only person up there and watching the opening literally blew me away. I couldn't concentrate on taking photos because I couldn't function. I had the biggest smile on my face as I watched Netsky come on with full force. Being the only person on the balcony was an incredible experience. I could not have asked for a better way to see one of my favorite producers live. IT WAS FUCKING AMAZING! DID I SAY THAT ALREADY?? 

For this tour Netsky brought out the full band consisting of Netsky himself on the keys, BABL also on the keys, Michael Schack on the drums, and Script as the MC or the hype man, with a special guest appearance from Billie Benton. Everyone absolutely killed it and I must say Script did an awesome job interacting with the crowd and keeping everybody excited. Some of my favorite parts in shooting this show were the faces that the Michael Schack and BABL kept making at me when I was shoving my camera in their faces.

If you know me you know that I absolutely hate large crowds. Especially at a drum and bass show where everyone is nasty and sweaty and constantly bumping into you. Thats where having the camera really came in handy, everyone wanted to be my friend and get out of my way. It was awesome! haha! The show was insane. Netsky played just about all of my favorite tracks and I was definitely caught singing and taking pictures at the same time. NETSKY EVEN CAUGHT ME AND SMILED AT ME OMG. Okay, okay enough of the fanboy. Netsky absolutely murdered it.

Here's a few images from the show, I really need to figure out a better way to shoot in those really low light situations to make sure and get everything nice and sharp. Concert photography is 800x harder than it looks, but I'm definitely having a blast trying to figure it out!

CHEERZ TO MY FAVORITE DJ, DOPE FRIENDS, AND SMELLY CROWDS.

Travis

THIS SHIT IS LONG // MY BAD. <3

This morning when I walked into the Studio I saw the 2015 Mustang lookin' fine as hell. As I was working I keep looking back and thinking about how fine that brand new beauty looked. So I breezed through my morning routine, got the gear out and started shooting this beautiful beast. 

Now...If you know me at all, you would know that I truly do not like Mustangs. At All. I don't even really like any muscle cars if I'm being honest. They're typically loud, big, heavy, and I'm not usually a huge fan of the type of people who usually buy those types of cars. you know what I'm talking about....

But this Mustang isn't like any of the other Mustangs. The body on this car has been redesigned with the 60's fastback in mind. The body lines are sharper, The front clip is more aggressive, the drivers seat is extremely driver friendly, I could go on and on. But my favorite part about this Mustang is the tiny little 4 cylinder Eco-Boost engine hidden beneath this tough sleek exterior. I have to admit when I heard that this Mustang was an Eco-Boost I was a little broken hearted, and I may have even laughed a bit. But another thing Ford did when redesigning for 2015 was made the suspension surprisingly tight and nimble. It handles like a dream considering its actually quite a bit heavier than the previous generations, I guess you could say Ford has really been feeding their horses...HAHA

All in all this Mustang is incredibly comfortable to drive and the Eco-Boost 4-Cylinder engine packs quite a punch. I know what you're thinking. "There's no way that the 4-Cylinder Eco-Boost mustang packs enough of a punch to be surprised by." Well...you're wrong. I was pleasantly surprised by the power coming from the little guy and was even more surprised at the fact that it really doesn't sound half bad.

OKAY. Enough review of the car! On to the Nerdy Photography stuff!

Gear List:
Canon 5D Mk II
Canon 17-40mm L
1xPaul C. Buff Alien Bees B400 (raw, ungelled)
1xPaul C. buff Alien Bees B800 (raw, ungelled)
1xWestcott Ice Light 
 

When I was setting this car up to shoot I thought it would be a good time to break out the Westcott Ice Light. I just bought this light and this is the first real time I used it for a shoot. The light output on this light is pretty nice and even, making those skinny highlights along the sides of the car look nice and crispy. The light I was using for light painting before was quite a bit dimmer than this light, much higher color temperature (somewhere around 7-8000K) and left all sorts of LED color noise trails. It was pretty annoying to deal with, but when you're only spending 20$ on something you usually can't expect too much out of it. Stay tuned for a video review of the Westcott Ice Light with Lumen output reading as well as color temperature rating! 

OK! So, the Ice light is cool. If you can afford one, get one. If not...open an Amazon Credit Card and get one...thats what I did.

The first shot I did was the side profile. For this I used the Westcott Ice light and did probably 6-7 trials of painting before I found my hero for each panel. Once I put them all together in post I dropped out the wall in the background and added a black slate to give a bit of a sleeker mood. the car itself is black so adding the black background really made the body lines and highlights pop out. After a little discussion with a fellow photographer in town Kyle Cross, I'm definitely going to reshoot this image to create some better placed highlights. 

Once the profile image was decided, I relocated the car and focused my attention on that Mustang's fine booty. The rear is by far my favorite part of this car, and it was also the hardest to capture. There are so many different lines back there and the highlights were going crazy. After several passes, couple of duplicated highlights, and a small hissy fit, I finally finished this beauty.

As I was setting up the shoot the interior of this car I remembered a few days ago that I saw a pretty cool and different way that an interior was shot by Andrew Link, a badass photographer out of New York. [If you don't know about Andrew Link go here and peep his work, its killer.] He setup his shot and added an additional strobe firing into the camera to create a flare effect. Of course, My image doesn't look nearly as awesome as his, but the flare was a pretty awesome effect and really added quite a bit of character to this interior. I shot 2 angles and i'm pretty hyped how it turned out.

After getting the inside handled I popped the hood and did a similar thing for the engine bay images. Found the sweet spot with one strobe head, then lined the other up a little closer to the frame to create a light source and a hint of flare. This was by far the quickest shot to achieve. Once I got my hero for the engine bay I turned on the DRLS, got my hero and threw them together in post.

After I made sure I had all of my hero shots, it was time for the final shot of the day: The rear quarter shot. this was the easiest and fastest shot of the day. Time was becoming a factor and I had to fire these frames fast and get this image processed in time for a proposal by the end of the day. Thank God I was in a pretty good mood today otherwise there's no way I would have been able to bang these images out so fast. 

As I was throwing all of these images together I started playing with some color balances and tried to create a look that I had seen several times from more commercially based photographers. I really love the feeling found in the surreal looking images you see in magazines, and I really wanted that same aesthetic for these images. I messed around a little bit and pretty quickly came across a palette that I was happy with. That little touch of color at the end of processing every image really put each image on a different level. I'm pretty hyped with the way these turned out, especially because I had a pretty short amount of time to get them all shot and processed. There are several things here and there that could use some fixing, but I'm le tired and wanted to pump these out. The good news is that the 2015 Mustang will be around for awhile so I should be able to grab it again and perfect each of these shots.  I'm looking forward to finalizing the techniques on these types of shots. 

CHEERZ TO NEW CARZ, AND SHORT DEADLINES! 

//TRAVIS

A few weeks ago I met up with my buddies Jake and Steven to mess around a little bit and do some shooting. I held on to these images because we threw around the idea of putting a feature together but unfortunately that fell through :(

I met up with Jake at my work and right away we set out to a garage down the street where we would meet Steven. Jake had just plastidipped his car and got a new set of wheels making that beauty even more beautiful. Steven's Z is immaculate. Static as hell and loud as a mofo. haha. Both cars were incredibly easy to shoot especially because of how clean they both are. Nothing is more frustrating than having to literally clean or fix a car in post! 

This set was pretty fun and really easy to do especially because both of these guys are extremely easy going, it was just a bonus that their cars literally looked awesome no matter where they were. There were a couple of instances where we literally just pulled over on the side of the road and grabbed a few frames. In one instance we just stopped in the middle of the street and grabbed a couple of frames, haha. 

I haven't known these two very long, only a few months I'd say, but I've already witnessed Jake's STI undergo quite a few transformations. From Silver to Black to White, and a few different sets of wheels. Its crazy because the first time I saw both of these cars they were both Silver and both had black XXR's, and were both low as hell. As of now Jake's STI is white, one some other wheel (I don't know the type) and Steven's Z is still clean as hell, low as hell, silver as hell, loud as hell, and rocking the XXR's as hell. 

Shooting these cars was definitely a breeze, and post was even more of a breeze because i had time to pay attention to more important things instead of rock chips, door dings, or scratches. These cars photographed beautifully and I'm pretty hyped with the way these images turned out. Unfortunately it's almost winter so Steven's Z is packed away but I'm sure there will be a winter set involving Jake's STI in all of its AWD glory. Until then, here's some images to drool over.

CHEERZZZZZ

Travis

Last Week sometime I stumbled across and advertisement for Moo.com which is a printing company. I was conveniently in the market for some stickers so based on their branding and presentation I gave them a shot. I love the way they laid their website out and I also loved the color schemes they used. So I purchased a little over 100 rounded stickers for somewhere around $20-$25. Today as I was sitting at my desk pouting about the issues I was having with Photoshop I got a special delivery, my stickers.

They were scheduled for delivery tomorrow, so the fact that they got to me a day early was already a bonus. As I ripped open the discrete packaging I unveiled a small white box with blue lettering. "We're round, we peel, but we're not an orange." I love it. The light blue color and simple clean typeface was perfect. I opened the cleanly folded box to reveal my stickers. As I was doing this i took a moment to appreciate the sleek and modern packaging and I decided that I was thoroughly impressed with the way this was all put together. 

I'm a huge sucker for clean packaging, and an even bigger sucker for modern design. This had it all. I was so happy. Included in my sticker pack were two sheets of fun stickers with goofy sayings on them. I knew this company was quirky but this is hilarious. I will be sticking these on as many people as I can without a doubt.

As I started removing my stickers and placing them on my gear, I noticed that they were VERY sticky, and they were made of a high quality vinyl which is even better considering all of the beatings they'll be taking as the gear is thrown around. Definitely happy with this company.

If you're in the market for some personalized print then I definitely suggest heading over to Moo.com and grabbing yourself some of their quality goods. I know I'll for sure be returning to them for any of my next print purchases. They're actually having a 25% off sale until November 18, so hurry on over and grab something for yourself!

Ever since I started my job I've been way too hyped on venturing to Las Vegas for the annual SEMA show. For those of you who don't know what SEMA is, picture everything you hear your car friends drooling over packed into a 2 mile convention center. The best way to sum up SEMA in one word is heaven. 

I had never been to Las Vegas and I wasn't too sure how it would be. I only knew what I had heard from friends and seen in movies. Overall I wasn't a huge fan of the general feel of Las Vegas. It came off to me like some sort of wasteland where bank accounts went to die. The streets were littered with garbage, digital billboards, hobos, and prostitute trading cards. 

OKAY SO. Monday I went to work and tried to stay busy until we took off for the airport. I have never experienced a longer day in my life. We packed everything up and headed out. WE WERE LAS VEGAS BOUND!

The first night we got there we strolled into the Stratosphere, which is something like an 800 ft tower with a hotel, casino, and mall packed inside. We were hyped. I knew it was going to be a good time when we were in the check-in line and I heard a familiar voice. My buddy Darren and his crew were staying in the same hotel. We got all settled in and headed to the top of the stratosphere where you could literally see all of Las Vegas. After we waited in line forever to get to the top we came out of the elevator and there was a little crowd gathering. We ran over to see what was going on and there was a guy who was about to jump off the top. He hesitated for a second then made the ultimate leap of faith off the top of this 800ft monster. After we witnessed that we kind of strolled around, took some pictures then went outside and peeked at the strip from the balcony. If you have the chance and you're in las vegas you should probably go to the top of the stratosphere, its awesome. 

shortly after we met up with Darren and company for a little appetizers and some drinks in the lounge at the top of the stratosphere. It was Darren's birthday so we definitely had a bunch of drinks but forgot we were in Las Vegas and everything was expensive as shit, haha!

Day 1 of SEMA arrived and we were extremely excited. I had no idea what I was in for. SEMA is fuckin' amazing. Me and my buddy Nick walked almost the whole thing in one day, and yes. My feet were DESTROYED just after the first day.  There was no way I could do this for 3 more days, but I did. My body hates me. A LOT.

Tuesday night we headed over to the MGM Grand where there is the greatest table known to man. The Sigma Derby which is mechanical horses. All you do is drop quarters and bet on mechanical horses. There's no way to be good at this, you just literally drop in quarters and bet on horses running in circles. This happened for a few hours, and I lost money of course, haha! Afterwards me and my buddy Darren walked the strip for a little bit and ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe where there was some sort of hip hop/dance crew battle happening. the only way to describe that place was crazy. There was non stop dancing, loud music, and several drinks consumed. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

I don't really have a whole lot of words to describe the SEMA show, its something that really needs to be experienced to understand how awesome it was. 4 straight days of insane cars, product suppliers, models, and events. I'm still absorbing it all. If you're a huge car fan definitely make your way out and experience it first hand. All of the media coverage doesn't do it justice AT ALL. I'm still trying to figure out what my favorite cars were there. I don't think I can decide because there were too many insane builds out there. 

Wednesday night we went out to Cesar's Palace and ate in the buffet. It was incredible. I wish I had the money to eat there everyday because it was literally insane. Crab legs, steak, it had everything. While we were there I discovered my food allergy to Crab Legs. don't eat crab legs if you're allergic to them. It sucks. bad.

Thursday night we drove out to Red Rock to try and get a couple of galaxy shots but unfortunately there was a full moon that was lighting up the area like the sun. It was also like 40 degrees and of course I didn't pack a jacket..I should have listened to my mom! We spent about an hour hanging out and messing around. I didn't really get anything out there, but it was definitely awesome seeing the mountains and the sky.

There's no way I could fit all 9,000 of my SEMA images into this post, so here's a few of my favorites from the show. Like I said before: You really need to experience this show to see what it's all about.

CHEERZ TO VEGAS, FRIENDZ, PLANES, AND EMPTY WALLETZ

[blak-list]

1.) n. a list of persons under suspicion for certain activity. a list of persons to be avoided, and or boycotted of certain activities.

2.) n. a list privately exchanged among employers, containing the names of persons to be barred from employment due to untrustworthiness or other opinions deemed to be considered undesirable. 

3.) Mike Ellington.

If you were to ask me how I knew Mike I wouldn't be able to tell you. I've always sort of known who he was even before I moved to St. Louis, and when I sort of got to know him and he finally sort of finished the car he'd been working on for quite some time it was only a perfect scenario to get together and shoot that beauty. 

I rolled over to chipotle to grab something to eat before Mike came through, then we headed over to an old hangout spot of Mike's from his days of shenanigans and began shooting. While I was kind of messing around Mike was telling stories of things him and his friends would do in that garage and I have no idea how they got away with some of the things he was saying, haha. Mike also got into a few of the details of how he came to the name Blacklisted for his S14.  Listening to Mike talk about his driving career was pretty neat I must say. Growing up I never really knew anyone who was into the driving scene let alone drifting. We talked a little about street drifting, and a little about competition, and at the end of it all Mike said the perfect words: "Its fuckin' stupid." 

This car has undergone quite a few transformations, a couple of different motors and a few different colors. I remember seeing pictures of this car with a giant mouth on the front and that is how I will always remember this S14. Thank god Mike still has that bumper at his house and could throw it on at any time. I loved hearing the stories of Mike escaping the police, drifting in the neighborhood, and having to change things on the car to remain anonymous. 

We stayed in the garage for most of the shoot, then moved down to another spot in front of a restaurant down the street. We were sitting out there talking about a shot when a few people came out and asked if we were shooting a commercial, and if they could be in it. Me and Mike sort of looked at each other and I said yes! and tried to direct them to do a certain pose (it didn't work out) While I was getting ready to shoot a frame Mike yelled out "It's for Red Bull!" I have no idea where that came from but it sounded awesome at the time and I'm pretty sure these people thought we were really shooting for Red Bull, or they were just pretty drunk. One of my favorite things about shooting in populated locations is the reactions of the people around the area, it never gets old. 

Anyway, we shot for awhile (probably too long..sorry Mike) talked for awhile, then wrapped at I don't even know what time, but I really enjoyed spending the time with Mike, getting to know him a little bit and hear him talk about his car and the experiences he's had with it. Just when I was getting bored with shooting cars Mike sort of relit my spark and reminded me why I love shooting people's cars. Behind every great car is a great mind, a great personality, and usually a shitload of great stories. Mike definitely had all three of these, and I'm pretty pumped he chose to share these with me. 

Here's a few of my favorites from the shoot!

CHEERZ TO GOOD STORIEZ, DOPE CARS, BIG WINGZ, AND RED BULL COMMERCIALZ.

Travis 

I woke up a little late this morning thanks to my buddy Brandon who was in town for a couple of days. He thought it would be a great idea to catch a 3AM bus back to Kansas City, so of course we drank too many beers and I'm not really sure how he got to the bus station...

Anyway I was scrolling through Facebook the other day and saw that there was an STL Instagram Meetup. Usually I wouldn't even think about going to something like this, but since I've been cooped up in my apartment for the past few months I thought it would be good to go meet some people and maybe make a couple of friends. My buddy Steve came and picked me up and we swung through the coffee shop where there was a meetup before the meetup. I saw a dude Dustin who I went to KCAI with, Dustin is murdering it right now photographing a rapper by the name of G-EAZY. I never really heard of G until I started seeing him in Dustin's photos. The other day I was on spotify and on the main advertisement was a huge picture of G-EAZY. I was hyped. go over to www.theyownthenight.com and peep some of Dustin's work, it's pretty dope.  

Also at the coffee shop we met a few awesome people, had some pretty good conversations, and some dope coffee before we headed over to midtown to meet the rest of the gang. Once everyone arrived we started walking. I wasn't really sure how it was going to go since I've never done anything like this before. We basically just walked around and shot photos of people and things for something like 2-3 hours. I originally brought out the wide angle, the speed light, and the 50 but I only ended up using the 50 because of its super shallow depth. Usually I'd be shooting wide with a speed light to get very vibrant backgrounds and properly lit subjects, but i opened the 50 up all the way, sped up the shutter speed and took on the whole shallow style for the day and I'm pretty glad I did. I usually can't stand shooting on sunny days because of the high contrast, but I was hyped once I figured out how to shoot a sunny day at f/2 and get decent looking images. 

After shooting everyone for a couple hours and a dead phone, we back and I called my mom. All in all not a bad saturday afternoon! 

Here's some images, I'm definitely going to need to keep shooting people, when it all works out it's actually pretty fun. 

CHEERZ TO INZTAGRAM, EZPRESSO, NEW FRIENDZ, AND DEAD PHONEZ.

WHERE DO I EVEN START WITH THIS LAST WEEKEND?
this post is long <3

I guess I'll start with Thursday night, since that's when we headed back to the homeland for a weekend thats sure to make the books. 

Thursday night after work me and Nick set out to Kansas City where we would be attending Fast Fridays the following evening. Nick drove the FR-S and I bravely drove my truck with tires that would make your mother cry and a broken 4th gear. The reason I drove my busted ass truck is because I was getting new tires from the homie Jeff over at Revline motors, otherwise there's no way in hell I'd drive that butterfingered, gas guzzling, gear grinding beautiful babe back to Kansas.
If you're in the KC area and need some good work done, holler at Jeff from Revline here.

I rolled in somewhere around 11pm and right away gave my buddy Alex a call and headed straight to his house to hangout for awhile, grab a beer then hit Westport where we went on to have way too many beers, but saw a bunch of people I haven't seen in a long time. One of my favorite things about coming home every time is all of the overwhelming love I feel whenever I go anywhere. It's fuckin' incredible. 

The next morning I woke up and went outside to grab some clothes from my truck only to see that it wasn't where I had parked it. I walked around for a second then realized it had probably been towed -___- After about 5 minutes of online wizardry I located it, then called nick and we went and got it. Thank god for Nick because he definitely bailed me out on the astronomical bill to get my truck out. After we saved the babe from the tow lot we dropped it off at revline to get new tires, then we hit the Studio to say hello to the old crew and grab some lunch. One of my favorite things to do when I'm in Kansas City is to visit the 8183 family. It's a guaranteed good time every time I step in the door, even if its just to say hello. I love you guys. If you don't know about 8183 Studio, you're blowing it. Go check out their insane work at 8183studio.com

Finally, we went and washed the FR-S and headed over to Fast Fridays at Aristocrat Motors. This Fast Friday was unlike any other in the sense that this event was a charity event held for the Ali Kemp Foundation. Ali was a Kansas teen who was killed while working at her neighborhood pool several years ago. Since her death her father started a foundation dedicated to teaching self defense to women in the metro area. Learn more about the Ali Kemp foundation at takedefense.org

There was a great turnout at the event, and we had a great time looking at a bunch of cars we'll never be able to afford, haha. Fast Fridays is always a good time especially because we get to catch up with old friends and talk cars for a few hours. Not a whole lot better than that!

After the event I jetted home real quick, made myself look somewhat decent and headed to RC's for Ashley's surprise 30th birthday party. I missed the surprise but it was so good to see the family and catch up with everyone while dancing like a fool and eating a bunch of cake. Being there made me miss home so much, and I'm so grateful for all of the love I felt in that place. Love you Ash. Happy birthday! 

Saturday morning I woke up way too late, worked for a little bit then headed to Nicks and hungout for a little then went to IKEA. Have you guys fuckin' been to IKEA? Jesus. That place is like a heavenly maze of confusion with a lot of awesome shit in there. Thank god I didn't have any money because I would buy the shit out of almost everything in that place. If you haven't gone there yet, GO.

Saturday night I ran over to a buddies house I haven't seen for awhile. A couple of St. Louis friends were there too so it was pretty cool. We hungout for awhile then I ran over to Sinbad's and grabbed a hooka with the homie Devin and then went home and crashed pretty hard. Another place I make sure to swing through every time I'm in town because not only is it the dopest hooka spot in Kansas City, the people there always make me feel like a celebrity every time I walk through the door. Love you guys <3

Sunday morning again I woke up waaay too late, threw myself together and headed to Nick's to grab his Dog Nico for a quick little shoot. Nico is probably one of the funniest dogs I've ever met because he literally acts like a human, It's Comical. He's also insanely beautiful as most Siberian Huskies are. After a quick little session with Nico we went back to Nick's house where we were fed an incredible pasta dish and watched the Royals in 3D on the bawwwlin TV Nick's dad just won at a golf tournament. If you guys haven't seen the Royals Play in 3D you're missing out on life. Not a Royals fan? forget you then! :)

After an incredible meal and watching the Royals in 3D I went and met up with Rachel to shoot her pretty Volkswagen Passat. She probably has one of the cleanest Passat's I've ever seen in my life. There's so much attention to detail on this beauty that it's almost insane. She definitely put a bunch of work into it to make it her own, and I'd say she nailed it! If she would just get some wheels it'd be perfect! haha. After a good sesh with Rachel it was somewhere around  8pm on a Sunday and I was still in Kansas City. Shit. 

While trying to get back to St. Louis as fast as I could of course I got a speeding ticket, I guess I should have listened to Nick when he told me not to bring the Audi back, haha!

After a jam packed weekend, an empty wallet, empty bank account, maxed out credit card, and little to no sleep I still couldn't wipe a smile from my face. All of the love and excitement I felt this weekend was more than I could have asked for. Thank you Kansas City, I love you.

CHEERZ TO FRIENDZ, FAMILY, EMPTY WALLETZ, BIRTHDAY PARTIES, EXPENSIVE CARZ, AND KANSAS CITY.

Travis.

I'm a few days late on this post, but last Wednesday me, my buddy nick, and my buddy darren went out to catch a show over to 2720 cherokee in St. Louis. I'd never been to this place so I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that I was going to see one of my favorite DJ's live. I was hyped as shit. 

We rolled in pretty early around 8-830 and the place was dead. It was also Wednesday night so we weren't too surprised. I was actually really hoping it would be a pretty dead show so I could get as close as I could to the stage. Things started picking up pretty quickly around 930-10 and the place was filling up pretty good. Before we knew it the local opener (Marcel something) came on stage and started dropping a few funky beats and was getting the crowd pretty hyped up for the rest of the guys. He was putting out some pretty dope shit, and after a few minutes of funkiness Eliot Lipp, Michal Menert, Paul Basic, and SuperVision came out all at once and started layin' on the beats. Now, we had originally gone to see Eliot Lipp because we had been pretty big fans of his. We had never even heard of anybody else on the stage but they were fuckin incredible and sounded insane together. They played a set together, then broke up into 4 individual sets, played another set together, then I think Michal Menert (who was the headliner) played another solo set to shut the place down. By that time I had quite a few beers, haha.

Once things started getting busier and funkier, I started walking around taking as many pictures as I could. I was getting kind of bored taking the same shots from front stage so I just kinda walked backstage to the VIP area and started shooting from side stage a little but. Nobody told me I couldn't be there, and nobody asked for a press pass or anything so I just kept shooting from both side stages for awhile until i got bored with those shots. Then I just kind of jumped on stage and started shooting pretty closely and again, nobody said anything. It was awesome. I was standing right next to one of my favorite DJ's (Eliot Lipp) on stage! I was hyped as shit. I'm sure to a frequent concert shooter none of this is a big deal but I was pretty fuckin' hyped to be slapping hands with all of these guys, especially because one of them has been one of my favorite DJ's since high school. After the show ended I grabbed a group shot on stage and shook everyone's hand. It was awesome. 

Here's some shots, I took a shitload and they basically all look like this haha you get the idea...

CHEERZ TO FRIENDZ, WEDNESDAY NIGHTS, AND FUNKY JAMS.

Travis

There are not too many things that get me as excited as Ryan's text messages that read:

"I want to take the rocco out."

The thing about Ryan is, 1. He's awesome. 2. He was one of the first friends I made when I moved out here, and when I found out that he owned a Ur-S4, a TT, and a 76 Scirocco I knew right away we were going to be besties. 

So...with that being said, I received a text message a couple of days ago stating that Ryan wanted to bring the Rocco out, and that he needed a few good pictures for the fellas over at DSTROYR. (check them out at dstroyr.com) Right away I was more than excited because I've been waning to marry his car from the moment I laid eyes on it, and I've also wanted to shoot it! haha.

I rolled over to Ryan's when he was just finishing cleaning his garage out, and the Rocco needed a little bit of a jump start. So we managed to open the hood of my busted truck and give that babe the spark she needed to come alive. In the process Ryan's awesome wife Amy brought out a pretty awesome pasta salad which I devoured like I hadn't eaten in days. Shortly after we loaded up the gear in the back seat and headed to the pay n' spray down the street to give that babe a little bath. One of the best things about that car is that it doesn't need a full coat of wax, or hardly a car wash at all to look like a stone cold fox. Ryan did a quick spray and we hit the road. We found a nice little parking garage where the lights were daylight balanced and pulled right in, fired several different frames and moved around a little bit to get some different angles of that beauty. Another fantastic thing about that car is that it literally looks good from every angle, so shooting it was a breeze. We goofed around a little bit, fired several frames and then headed on home. 

Now, I should be making lunch for tomorrow but I can't help but get these images processed right away. I love the shit out of this car, and look forward to getting the opportunity to do a full shoot once the interior is where it needs to be. Until then, I'll just drool over it every time I go over to Ryan's. 

Here's a few shots, enjoy!

CHEERZ TO RYAN, AMY, AND PRETTY VOLKSWAGENS :D

Travis

Thursday finally rolled around, and I was actually excited for work (what?) The reason being was that I would be shooting the pretty S2000 I'd been staring at for 2 weeks. This beautiful beast is a 380hp monster. I don't know how else to describe it. It's probably the cleanest S2000 I'll ever see in my lifetime. 

After work I got all my gear ready and waited patiently as Nick took what felt like 4 hours on a sales call. I was getting pretty anxious so I grabbed a beer and continued to stare that this blue beauty, thinking about some of the shots we were about to get. 

Nick FINALLY got off the phone and we were off! The time was somewhere around 6:30pm as we arrived to our first location. We realized we still had daylight left and for the shots we were wanting to get we needed it to be dark. There was a Bar Louie upstairs, so we grabbed some dinner to kill some time. After we waited around 30-45 minutes we set back out and got the car ready to shoot. Everything was going great as we got the car in position and I got the camera all set up. I went to plug my strobes into my diy power pack and got everything in position when I realized that there was no power going to the strobe head. Shit. My cheapo depo power pack couldn't handle the heat of the strobe head I was trying to plug in. Luckily I had my light wand and was able to get a little something.

PROTIP: Make sure your shit works before you set out to location to shoot.
PROTIP: Don't drink too many beers and eat a lot of food before a shoot. 

We hungout in the garage for a little bit, tried a few different compositions then drove around the block and found a nice blue wall near the sidewalk. Of course we pulled the S2000 up on the sidewalk and continued with our shoot. Luckily we didn't catch any trouble from anyone for parking illegally, haha

As we were wrapping Nick noticed a Quik Trip just across the street and suggested we go shoot at the pump. I laughed at him at first but he was dead serious, and I'm glad he was because the daylight balanced overhead lighting was perfect. We parked up, filled up, and fired a few frames. As we kept shooting I decided we should take full advantage of this lighting and the fact that nobody has bothered us to get a few more decent frames. Throughout the time we were at the gas station we were approached twice about what kind of car it was we were shooting, haha. Nobody seemed to care that we were taking up 4 pumps and taking photos. I love that shit. 

Even though I've been staring at this car in the studio for almost 2 weeks, i'm quite sad to see it go. Definitely one of my favorite cars to come through the studio. Huge thanks to Mark Mo for making the trek to St. Louis and allowing us to play with this beast. 

Here's some images!

CHEERZ TO FAST HONDAS AND FREEZING COLD SEPTEMBER NIGHTS.

OUT HERE STR8 FLEXIN'